out for him by Christ, and begin to see in them the expressions of the
deepest and most divine humility.
I doubt not that many here will be far more able than I am practically to
apply the facts which I have been adducing to the cause of the hospital
for which I am pleading. But there is one consequence of them to which I
must beg leave to draw attention more particularly, especially at the
present era of our nation. If, then, these discoveries of science be
indeed revelations and inspirations from God, does it not follow that all
classes, even the poorest and the most ignorant, the most brutal, have an
equal right to enjoy the fruits of them? Does it not follow that to give
to the poor their share in the blessings which chemical and medical
science are working out for us, is not a matter of charity or
benevolence, but of _duty_, of indefeasible, peremptory, immediate duty?
For consider, my friends; the Son of God descends on earth, and takes on
Him not only the form, but the very nature, affections, trials, and
sorrows of a man. He proclaims Himself as the person who has been all
along ruling, guiding, teaching, improving men; the light who lighteth
every man who cometh into the world. He proclaims Himself by acts of
wondrous power to be the internecine foe and conqueror of every form of
sorrow, slavery, barbarism, weakness, sickness, death itself. He
proclaims Himself as One who is come to give His life for His sheep—One
who is come to restore to men the likeness in which they were originally
created, the likeness of their Father in Heaven, who accepteth the person
of no man—who causeth His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, who
sendeth His rain on the just and on the unjust, in whose sight the
meanest publican, if his only consciousness be that of his own baseness
and worthlessness, is more righteous than the most learned, respectable,
and self-satisfied pharisee. He proclaims Himself the setter-up of a
kingdom into which the publican and the harlot will pass sooner than the
rich, the mighty, and the noble; a kingdom in which all men are to be
brothers, and their bond of union loyalty to One who spared not His own
life for the sheep, who came not to do His own, but the will of the
Father who had sent Him, and who showed by His toil among the poor, the
outcast, the ignorant, and the brutal, what that same will was like.
With His own life-blood He seals this Covenant between God and man. He
offers up His own body as the first-fruits of this great kingdom of
self-sacrifice. He takes poor fishermen and mechanics, and sends them
forth to acquaint all men with the good news that God is their King, and
to baptize them as subjects of that kingdom, bound to rise in baptism to
a new life, a life of love, and brotherhood, and self-sacrifice, like His
own. He commands them to call all nations to that sacred Feast wherein
there is neither rich nor poor, but the same bread and the same wine are
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